Remove Microsoft’s limit and customize the Windows 8 start screen

In Windows 8 the start menu is no more, instead you’re presented with the start screen when you start up your computer. The start screen is part of the Metro GUI and the screen with all the tiles you’ve seen on Windows 8 news articles and advertisements. Unfortunately Microsoft has limited the appearance of the start screen. It’s possible to choose which tiles you want to show and you’ll be able to choose from a couple color schemes and 10 background images, but that’s about it. The developers of Stardock have found a way to bypass these limits and have come up with a new application called Decor8.

This application makes it possible to set your own background image and when that’s not enough you can select a couple images to make a custom slideshow where random images can appear on a set interval. It’s also possible to fade the background image against the start screen background color to get a subtle effect. And when it comes to color schemes, you’ll get all the freedom you want once the application is in use. If that’s not enough, it also allows you to control how many rows of tiles are available on the start screen.

Decor8 is currently in beta and has a 30 day free trial, if you want to purchase it then it will set you back $4.99.

I tried this yesterday, and the first thing I discovered is that the background is covered up by all the tiles anyway. If this had a way to make the tiles semi transparent, it would be really nice, and I would probably buy it. But one thing it does that is really nice though, is let you set the number of tiles in each column, up to seven (maybe this is based on the resolution of the monitor). So overall, I don't know if it's really worth paying for after the trial runs out.